so im gonna wait till the back2school promo starts but i had a question about pricing.

i heard that if you purchase it in store --the macbook--, you have to pay for the ipod upfront, but then they give you a mail in rebate that sends you a check for the ipods ammount after like a month.

now i heard that if you buy it online, you dont have to use the mail in rebate and the ipod is instantly discounted @ checkout. so is this right or did someone lie to me?

Haven't bought this online, but I would be fairly confident that you pay for the iPod up front regardless of whether you buy online or in-store. Also the rebate submission is handled online, and is easy as cake. They're also pretty quick in sending you the check.

The big news revealed today, however, is that the OS will now only be available in the Mac App Store as a 4GB download -- which installs in place, no reboots -- and that it will run you just $29.99 for all of your authorized Macs. It will be available sometime in July, but developers can get the latest preview release today. Head on past the break for the official press release.

I like how its only available at the app. store and is only 29.99... Cause rumors in previous months were it was going to be up towards 300.00 cause its a whole new software.. So thats some great news! Also here is some new features that Lion will present:

1. Multi-touch gestures, very similar to iOS: Taken everything they've learned from iOS and applying that to Lion. Swipe, pinch, etc. Scrollbars disappear when not in use.

2. Full Screen Applications: "Really important for notebooks." Lion has a standard method for full screen apps. A swipe gesture allows you to get back to the desktop, and users can have more than one full screen app running at once, with a swipe gesture to switch between them.

3. Mission Control: The "best feature of Lion" according to Phil Schiller, is a combination of Spaces, Expose and an App Switcher. Spaces are managed through Mission Control, allowing them to be deleted and added on the fly.

4. Enhanced Photo Booth: This is a big feature for the teen crowd. Head into any Apple Store on a Friday or Saturday evening and you'll see many teenagers playing with Photo Booth and uploading pictures to Facebook. The new and improved Photo Booth can follow your face and make "targeted facial enhancements", such as making just your eyes huge.

5. Mac App Store: In the past 6 months, the Mac App Store has become the #1 software channel for Mac applications. Some developers have more than doubled their revenue by offering their software in the Mac App Store. New additions to the App Store in Lion will be in-app purchases, push notifications and application sandboxing for increased security.

6. Launchpad: Imagine the iOS home screen, with rows of app icons, on a Mac. That's Launchpad. It will make finding and organizing apps much, much easier for the average user (think, your Mom). You can even make folders, yet another iOS feature) within Launchpad. It's initiated by a gesture.

7. Resume: Instantly resume where you were in an application when you quit it -- just like iOS. There seems to be a trend popping up here. Works system wide, when you reboot, all of your windows and apps return how they were. Lion auto-saves everything. It makes for easy versioning, and reverting to past changes, much like Time Machine does now, but on a file-by-file basis. Every change is logged -- though it only stores the difference between revisions, making it very space efficient.

8. AirDrop: A new document sharing method. Lion will find other users running AirDrop and display all the machines it can see in the Finder. Sending files is as easy as dragging and dropping an icon on the AirDrop logo. The recipient gets a prompt, confirms they want the file, and it downloads to their computer. It sounds simple, but it should be very handy. BOOM.

9. Mail: Mail has been completely redesigned, with lots of inspiration from the iPad Mail client. Search looks much more intelligent, and there is a new conversation view apparently inspired by Gmail.

if they could give macbooks better battery life while connected to the internet... THE CLOUD AND NETBOOKS WOULD BE MORE APPEALING... NO MORE 500GB HARD DRIVES

but also less real ownership. fuck, this is happening too fast, i need to buy all the music i listen to on cd before apple/skynet outlaws optical media. still love apple, but i'm scared. i want stuff to be real.

if they could give macbooks better battery life while connected to the internet... THE CLOUD AND NETBOOKS WOULD BE MORE APPEALING... NO MORE 500GB HARD DRIVES

but also less real ownership. fuck, this is happening too fast, i need to buy all the music i listen to on cd before apple/skynet outlaws optical media. still love apple, but i'm scared. i want stuff to be real.

I hear you, but they still do offer Superdrives (external drives) for the MBA, which has no ODD. If/when they get rid of it, hopefully they still keep the Superdrives around

Fell bad for those people who waited to buy a new mac cause they thought they were going to get an ipod with it.. I think it was a stupid idea to change it up but then again apple just had to drop 600 million in a lawsuit settlement.. Going to grab the new 27" iMac next week or the week after when i move into my new place..